Apple and Google remove betting apps from their stores in Brazil
The blackout of the Brazilian market also reached app stores. Apple and Google removed all betting apps from their catalogs in Brazil on Tuesday, once the provisional measure prohibiting fixed-odds betting in the country came into effect. Globo Online had been tracking 15 applications that were operating legally since the previous week, and although all were available on Monday, none appeared in the two stores the following morning.
What remained in their place describes the limit of the measure. Searching for the name of a betting site, or typing "bet" and "casino," began to return card games and slot machine simulators that do not pay out cash prizes, i.e., the social segment that the prohibition does not reach.
Monday had been an interim day. Applications could still be installed on phones, although depositing and betting were already blocked, and the apps themselves displayed messages referring to the provisional measure, with some explicitly warning that new deposits could not be made. By mid-afternoon on that Monday, the money deposited on the platforms totaled BRL 1.33 billion, approximately USD 264.9 million. The Government had left the apps available for download until that day because that was the deadline for voluntary withdrawal by bettors, a deadline that expired at 23:59.
The official schedule was strict and staggered. The measure prohibits operating, offering, intermediating, and advertising fixed-odds betting, set October 5 at 23:59 as the deadline for voluntary withdrawal, and stipulated that from midnight on October 6, sites and applications should cease operations. On October 7 and 8, companies had to provide banks with information on how much each user had, identified by their CPF, and between October 9 and 14, banks are responsible for returning the funds.
Apps that remain installed on phones also do not work. Most of those left on iPhone and Android devices redirect users to the brasilsembets.com.br website, a page the Government designed to inform how to recover balances and to mount campaigns about the risks of gambling.
The National Association of Games and Lotteries, for its part, maintained its fundamental position. The entity defined the provisional measure as electioneering and legally invalid, and recommended that its operators not apply it.
The removal from stores is the most difficult part of the blackout to reverse. If Congress modifies the measure or the Supreme Federal Court suspends it, the legal framework can return in a day, but distribution cannot, because each application has to go through Apple's and Google's approval process again, with the deadlines and criteria of each store. This means that the return of the market, if it happens, will find operators with a mobile channel that needs to be rebuilt from scratch. It is also worth noting the ANJL's recommendation not to apply the rule, in contrast to the effective compliance shown by the platforms, a discrepancy that suggests the association's position is written for the judicial record rather than for daily operations. Finally, the amount in balances is the same as reported by the Government in its balance sheet, BRL 1.33 billion, and the difference between the USD 264.9 million in this calculation and the official USD 260 million is solely due to the exchange rate used in each case.
Tags: Apple, Google, Brazil betting ban, ANJL